This past weekend in my message, "Seeking Understanding," I spent most of the sermon exploring ways in which the Ethiopian eunuch grew in his own journey with God through Philip's influence. Near the end of the message, I touched briefly on how Philip's life of discipleship was marked by saying "yes" to God again and …
A Call Worth Paying Attention To
I don’t know if you’ve ever had trouble with spam robocalls on your phone, like I have, but it is so annoying. I signed up for the National “do-not-call” registry, but I continue to receive these calls. I have a special spam filtering app on my phone, but I still get the calls. When I …
Unveiled with God: Prayer as a Pathway to Relational Encounter with God and Ourselves
This past weekend in my message, "Praying Inward," I explored the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 as a window into how prayer is both an encounter with God and, through God, an encounter with who we truly are. In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, C. S. Lewis addresses a wide range of …
God’s Multifaceted Word: reflecting on Psalm 119
In my personal daily times of Scripture reading and prayer, I have recently been meditating on Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is by far the longest of the psalms with a total of 176 verses. This psalm is an extended reflection on the delight and power of God's word, structured as an acrostic poem with one …
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The Soil of the Heart
"While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 'A farmer went out to sow his seed.'" (Luke 8:4-5a) Reading the parable of the soils in Luke's gospel, I'm surprised by the final sentence of Jesus' explanation of that parable to the disciples: "As …
Matthew Erickson 